麻豆传媒

On Monday, 麻豆传媒 hit pause on winter term to commemorate the life and legacy of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. with a busy slate of speaker presentations, workshops and discussion.

鈥淚 think if there was any place I wanted to be today to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.鈥檚 life and legacy, it would be with young people, it would be with educators, and it would be with people who live and learn in communities,鈥� the poet and writer Saeed Jones said in his keynote speech, delivered before an audience of students, faculty and staff in Love Gymnasium.

Jones, author of the memoir How We Fight For Our Lives (2019) and the poetry collection Alive at the End of the World (2023), among other books, read from his work-in-progress, a memoir titled 鈥淗ome Out There.鈥� In the passage, Jones recounted some of the difficult early experiences that shaped one of his 鈥渜ueer black poet ancestors,鈥� Langston Hughes.

A leader of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes exchanged letters with Martin Luther King Jr., who admired Hughes鈥� work and even included lines from his poems in some of his speeches, Jones said. 鈥淪omething that I think both of these figures, these titans of American history and thought and letter have in common is love,鈥� Jones said. 鈥淔or both of these figures, their love was not diminished by hate or adversity鈥� . I think with people like Dr. Martin Luther King [and] Langston Hughes in particular, it鈥檚 like giving oxygen to a candle. The flame just gets brighter.鈥�

The event had kicked off with a performance by baritone Philip Lima, who delivered a stirring operatic rendition of King鈥檚 famous 鈥淚 Have a Dream鈥� speech. Student dance groups Precision and Outkast also took to the floor during the program, while Vera Aimunmondion 鈥�24 got the crowd clapping and singing along during her performance of the gospel song 鈥淭his Little Light of Mine.鈥�

In his welcome remarks, Principal Bill Rawson 鈥�71; P鈥�08 recalled a trip he took with his son to Mississippi and Alabama, where they visited various sites important to the Civil Rights Movement. When they visited the Baptist church in Montgomery, Alabama, where King had preached, the guide showed them a wooden lectern King had used when he spoke outside the state capitol in Montgomery at the end of the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march. 鈥淗ow long?鈥� King asked in that speech. 鈥淣ot long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.鈥�

Rawson recalled how the guide asked him and the other members of his group to step behind the lectern and recite a few words of King鈥檚 famous speech. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think you can have an experience like that and not in some way feel changed,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 my hope for all of you today鈥�that at the end of the day you feel in some way that you鈥檙e not quite the same persons you were at the start of the day.鈥�

And a child shall lead them

Before Rosa Parks came Claudette Colvin. Nine months before the famed heroine of the Civil Rights Movement was yanked off a Montgomery, Alabama, bus for refusing to give up her seat to a white person, 15-year-old Colvin did the same thing on the same bus line in the same city. She was arrested and jailed, too, but Colvin鈥檚 name is mostly lost to history.

Workshop leaders Amber Smith and Alicia Biggs shared Colvin鈥檚 story with three dozen Exonians in Grainger Auditorium to illustrate that teenagers and students like themselves have been pushing to make the world better for a long time, often without recognition. 鈥淵ou may not always be known for your advocacy, but that doesn鈥檛 mean it didn鈥檛 make an impact,鈥� Smith said.

In 鈥淎dvocacy in Action: Student Movements Change the World,鈥� the Colorado educators shared many examples of largely forgotten young people as catalysts. Like 8-year-old Sylvia Mendez, the face of a desegregation lawsuit in California paved that way for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954; like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who trained its teenaged members to endure shameful harassment and abuse for the right to sit at lunch counters in North Carolina in 1960; like the hundreds of thousands of students who boycotted New York City public schools in 1964 to spotlight de facto segregation across the city.

Smith and Biggs reminded the 麻豆传媒 students that young people are still among society鈥檚 most potent advocates, citing climate-change fighter Greta Thunberg, gun-control activist David Hogg and Afghan education activist Malala Yousafzai as examples.

鈥淵ou鈥檙e not always going to benefit directly from your own advocacy,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淒r. King didn鈥檛. But he would look at what鈥檚 going on in this room today and say, 鈥極K, we鈥檙e getting there.鈥欌��

Finding purpose in King’s story

In Assembly Hall, students heard a presentation by Corey Johnson, an investigative reporter for the national news organization ProPublica. Johnson, the 2025 Richard and Joan S. Strickler Exonian Fund Speaker, shared the story of how he got started in journalism, after struggling to find a job just out of college and moving home to live with his mother.

鈥淭here was a time in my life when most people looked at me and considered me to be a鈥�loser, somebody who had wasted a whole bunch of time and a whole bunch of talent and a whole bunch of possibilities,鈥� Johnson said. But after reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr. and the FBI, the young Johnson was motivated to find out more. His persistence enabled him 鈥� months later 鈥� to connect with the widow of a man who headed Atlanta鈥檚 police intelligence division during the 1950s and 鈥�60s; she let him look through boxes of files documenting the division鈥檚 surveillance of King and other civil rights leaders and activists.

Mohammed spoke to a room full of students about institution building. 鈥淏ringing Black culture into the luxury space has been a confrontational objective for me, and the amount of work and effort over the last 10 years has been exhaustive. But how is that work being instituted so that it will survive me? That鈥檚 where I鈥檝e been thinking about institutions and their roles.鈥�

Mohammed said he has developed an appreciation that institutions 鈥� cultural, educational, commercial 鈥� are vehicles for lasting impact because they “are not just bound by one person or a small group that can be worn away over time.

鈥淲hatever way you want to change the world comes down to either creating your own institutions or contending with the existing ones.鈥�

He tasked students with coming up with a list of elements that define institutions, a list that included some degree of hierarchy, structure, ideology, adaptability, desirability and more. They discussion then steered toward how these elements might help or hinder every good Exonian鈥檚 purpose: to make an impact on the world.

鈥淭he world is thick; the way things are is deeply defined,鈥� Mohammed said. 鈥淭he world is not just waiting for you to amend it. Institutions are part of making change in the world.鈥�

Man up for the ‘Beloved Community’

In the Forum of the Elizabeth Phillips Academy Center, over 100 students, mostly male, took in a workshop titled 鈥淢en and Masculinity in Martin Luther King, Jr.鈥檚 Beloved Community.鈥� Led by visiting presenter Rory Hart and student panelists Caspar Bailey 鈥�25, Marcus Ingelfinger 鈥�25, RJ Edmonds 鈥�26 and Marco Rodriguez 鈥�27, the topics put forth, and corresponding breakout discussions, centered on King鈥檚 message and the adverse effects of toxic masculinity on societal unity.

Paraphrasing King, Hart,聽chair of the History & Global Studies Department at the Hun School of Princeton, teed up the message for the workshop.

鈥淲e have to break out of our default settings for seeing and operating in the world so that we can share in the fruits of the world together and so that we can live and transcend discrimination and prejudice,鈥� Hart said. 鈥淕ender is one of the qualitative and quantitative changes that stands between us and King’s vision of the Beloved Community.鈥�

The session quickly became interactive as the moderators invited instant digital feedback to the prompt 鈥淲hat is masculinity?鈥� The projected screen quickly filled with words like 鈥渟trength鈥� and 鈥渕uscle.鈥�

鈥淚 noticed a lot of the words have to do with characteristics or behavior or your mindset, which is very important in what masculinity actually is,鈥� said Edmonds. 鈥淥ur goal here is to kind of change that into something positive rather than the common association of some of the words 鈥� muscles or strength 鈥� things that are usually associated with being a man.鈥�

The students then broke up into small groups to discuss male role models in their lives and the lessons, both good and bad, they have learned from those figures.